Boy Meets Hamster Read online

  And there was Troy Slater, tied to the train tracks like an old-fashioned damsel in distress. The girls had used two pink skipping ropes to hold him down: they were tied round his wrists in big loops. Troy was twisting and kicking like he was doing a horizontal version of Riverdance.

  He saw me and yelled, ‘GERREMOFF! GERREMOFF!’ in a way that suggested that if his hands were free he’d be bulldozing everyone in the playground. I eyed the skipping ropes nervously.

  There was a whoop of delight from somewhere behind us. Dad had figured out how to twist the ropes of his swing so that it spun him in circles as it unravelled. Hopeless.

  ‘THEY’RE GONNA KILL ME. I’M GONNA KILL ’EM!’ Troy wailed, not really encouraging me to release him.

  ‘We’re not killing you,’ said Minnie or Winnie.

  ‘We’re just going through your pockets,’ agreed Winnie or Minnie.

  They’d already reclaimed their tails – each of them had a large neon-pink bundle of artificial hair sticking out of a princess-dress pocket. I thought for a minute that Kayla might like one to match her hair, then remembered how she’d vanished off to downward dog and salute the sun without me, and that I totally wasn’t bothered about her any more.

  As well as finding the missing parts to their birthday outfits, the twins had uncovered a huge pile of other strange things, most of which looked like it belonged to someone other than Troy. He must have had pockets that ran right down his legs.

  Hesitantly (because anything Troy had touched was likely to be sticky from an unknown source), I picked up a sparkly kitten toy that meowed when I squeezed it. ‘Is this yours, then?’ And then a pair of wire-framed glasses like the kind my nana wears. ‘Or these?’

  ‘NO,’ Troy snarled. ‘I FOUND THEM, THASSALL. LEMMEGO.’

  Letting him go just then would probably have been a bit like letting a bull into a china shop and then throwing in a grenade. I tutted softly.

  ‘Shame, the glasses might suit you. I don’t think any of this is yours, though, is it?’ I rummaged through the pile of contraband again. One square of my cherry chewing gum lay at the bottom of the heap. ‘Which just makes me wonder what you’re doing with it. It’s an awful lot to have just found.’

  ‘Everything OK, kids?’ Dad’s voice made me jump. I twisted round to find him and the twins’ mum standing over us. Neither of them looked particularly worried that their children had Troy Slater helplessly at their mercy.

  With his klepto-collection, I could probably have had Troy thrown into the caravan park equivalent of juvenile detention. Jayden-Lee might even thank me for it. He hadn’t sounded too pleased when he was looking for Troy before.

  Then again, he might have the same kind of rule I have about Jude. We fight sometimes, obviously, but the only person allowed to be mean to my little brother is me.

  I chewed on my lip, trying to figure out my next move. ‘Troy was just . . . explaining his good deed for the day.’

  ‘He was?’ Minnie asked.

  ‘Was he?’ asked Winnie.

  Troy grunted, and looked just as surprised as they did.

  ‘Totally,’ I said. ‘Look at all these things he’s got that don’t belong to him.’

  Dad, Jude, the twins and their mum all looked suspiciously at the glittering collection. I dropped the toy kitten back on top of a dragon’s hoard of squeaky dolls and dog chews, somebody’s swimming trunks, a plastic Elvis quiff, and a single blue suede shoe.

  ‘He must have spent all holiday collecting up people’s lost things so he could return them to their rightful owners. But that’s hard to do all alone.’

  ‘He can give it to lost property!’ Jude declared, beaming forgiveness down on Troy now all had been explained.

  ‘We can take it! Mummy, can we?’ The twins each pulled on one of their mother’s arms until she nodded and agreed to stop at the park office on the way to pick up their cake. She and Dad arranged for Jude to stop by their caravan later for a slice.

  Then Dad rested his hands on the back of Jude’s chair, and they turned towards the playground gates.

  ‘WAIT!’

  Troy had finally found his voice once the twins had gathered up his treasure pile and everyone looked ready to go.

  ‘WHARRABOUT ME? WHARRABOUT THE TRAIN?’

  There was a distant ringing sound. It was the kind of ringing that might have been made by the warning bells of a miniature train coming along the tracks.

  ‘You can get up, silly,’ Jude said.

  ‘Probably before you’re runned over,’ added one of the twins, as the other nodded seriously.

  ‘It will be harder to get up after.’

  ‘BUT I’M STUCK! HELP! HELP! I’M TIED UP!’ Troy’s face was slowly going red.

  I leaned over and lightly tugged on the end of one of the skipping ropes. The knots fell away in my hand. ‘Yes, Troy. But they only tied you up with bows.’

  With all that kicking, he hadn’t really tugged on the ropes around his arms at all. When he did, the remaining ties easily unravelled.

  I held out a hand. ‘You really had better get up. Being squashed by a tiny train covered in bunting would just be embarrassing.’

  Ignoring my offer, Troy scrambled to his feet and backed away. ‘I’ll get you,’ he hissed, and then pointed to me and Jude. ‘I’ll get you double!’

  He ran out of the playground, presumably to work on some fantastically evil vengeance, but just then I didn’t care. I’d spotted something in the bundle of goods that Minnie was holding.

  A battered green mobile with a shattered screen.

  ‘I think I know who this belongs to. I’ll give it back.’

  I tucked it into my pocket quickly, before Dad could ask, or anyone could see my hands shaking. Jayden-Lee’s phone. It had to be. I’d just accidentally managed to secure an all-access pass to the backstage area of his brain.

  I could find out anything I wanted about him, if I could just get past the feeling that it would be really wrong of me to look.

  I tried to talk myself out of having morals the whole way back to the caravan. I was concentrating so hard on it that I didn’t even notice that someone I didn’t recognize was standing in front of our door.

  Not until she turned around and in a brisk, sharp voice said, ‘Good afternoon. I’m the park manager. Would one of you be Mr Dylan Kershaw? I very much need to have a word.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  She was wearing a shiny, royal-blue power suit that looked like she’d pulled it out of a portal to the 80s, and holding a serious-looking clipboard. There are two types of clipboard in the world: ones that make people look like they’re going on a Geography field trip, and ones that look like they’re full of Very Bad News.

  This clipboard definitely seemed to be the bad-news kind. Besides, she’d never have made it through a field trip with those shoulder pads.

  I had no idea what the park manager could want to see me about. Except, as she clipped back down the ramp towards us, my mind ran an instant action-replay of everything that had happened in the three days since we’d arrived. By the time I could see that the badge pinned to her tailored jacket read Call me Margaret! I’d remembered a hundred reasons she might want to see me.

  Maybe Troy had already reported me for trying to turn him into the human equivalent of leaves on the line. Or she’d had a call from lost property about a missing phone. She might have come to throw me out of the park before I could start another riot with an off-key power ballad.

  Or—

  ‘Has something happened to Kayla?’ I gasped out the question before I could help myself, my heart feeling like it had crawled up into my throat to choke me. I knew I was the emergency contact in her phone because I was slightly less prone to panic than her dad.

  She might have had a yoga accident. Ruptured something while doing sun salutes, or tied herself in a knot instead of a lotus. ‘Kayla Flores?’

  I’d never forgive myself if there’d been a yogatastrophe.

  ‘What
are you saying about me?’ Kayla pulled open the caravan door and looked out with a glare hard enough to crack concrete. My heart sank right back into my chest. She was fine, but it looked like she still hated me.

  Then Mum appeared behind her, clutching a gigantic, steaming dish of something that looked a bit like she’d just caught it falling out of a cow’s backside. ‘You’re back just in time for lunch – we’re having mystery beef.’ She frowned as she caught sight of Margaret’s crisp blonde curls. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I really do need to speak to Dylan Kershaw,’ Margaret the manager said, somehow unfazed by Mum’s toxic meal planning. ‘If somebody could possibly clarify who that might be.’

  ‘It’s me.’ I stepped forward. If I was going to be charged with crimes against karaoke, or worse, we might as well get it over with.

  ‘Mr Kershaw.’ Margaret stuck out her hand. I waited for Dad to take it before it clicked that she was still talking to me. After a minute, she lowered it again, then peered into Jude’s chair as if he was a specimen in a laboratory jar. ‘And this must be Judy.’

  ‘Jude,’ said Jude, who’d heard that name from the kids at school before, and not the ones he liked.

  ‘Ah yes,’ Margaret went on, ticking something off on her board like we’d just passed a test. ‘I thought that was an unusual name for a little boy. And this is the one to whom the incident occurred?’

  ‘Incident?’ Dad asked.

  Margaret stared at her board. ‘Yes, ah, the . . . most unfortunate, deeply regrettable personal injury event in which your sons were involved. I believe Dylan was the supervising familial persona.’

  She was making less sense than Kayla did when she broke out her legal-eagle talk. A personal injury event sounds like something on the schedule of the Bad Luck Olympics. I said, ‘Excuse me? I’m what? What incident?’

  Margaret tapped her teeth with the end of her pen. ‘The report I have here informs me that you were responsible for the care of your brother at one of our Happy Hamster Parties.’

  She was here about Jude and the gum. The penny dropped with a thud, then rolled off quickly down the road just to avoid having to be there when Mum found out what I’d been hiding from her.

  The words responsible for your brother rattled around my head.

  ‘Oh, that.’ I spluttered, folding my arms tightly across my chest to keep them from flapping as I spoke. The last thing I needed to do was accidentally smack the park manager in the face. ‘That wasn’t an incident. No one was hurt or anything – it was more of a . . . minor redesign?’

  Kayla would have known the right word to use, if she was still talking to me. Kayla wouldn’t have made it sound like Troy gave Jude a new shelving unit and some fancy wallpaper instead of the worst haircut of his life. A minor redesign?

  But Jude’s hair wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was that it was all my fault.

  Margaret sucked a breath in between clenched teeth. ‘Mr Kershaw, I have several statements here assuring me of the course of events, as well as your involvement. This one, for instance, states that—’

  ‘Jude,’ Mum’s voice rang out from the caravan doorway so sharply that Margaret lost track of her notes. ‘Darling, take off the hat.’

  For a moment I’d almost imagined that things couldn’t get any worse. That I might be able to talk my way out of this. My only chance now was to grab the back of Jude’s chair and make a run for it. We’d cross the border into Devon and live like outlaws, surviving off our wits, and building new lives for ourselves under assumed names. Mum never had to know what was under that hat.

  But Jude had tugged it off almost before I could move. His bald patch gleamed accusingly in the sunlight, a little bit sweaty from being stuck under all that orange fur.

  Mum headed down the ramp. I tried to calculate how long I had to live.

  She still had the stinky beef dish in her arms. Maybe she’d try drowning me in stew. Or she could just force me to eat it: that might be worse. I held my breath as she stopped in front of me, cleared her throat, then spun round to face the manager, wearing her most threatening smile.

  ‘Well, Margaret. I do appreciate your concern, though as you can see the personal injury event was limited to a rather large chunk of his hair – which is why I’ve decided to take no direct action about your staff’s inability to manage the children in their care. I’ve heard it’s a quite important week for you, with all this Park of the Year business, so I’m sure you wouldn’t want there to be any unnecessary fuss.’ Mum’s voice was sickly sweet, but so clipped that it sounded like she was biting off the end of every word, and might bite someone else in a minute.

  My mind was racing to catch up. Mum knew? She didn’t blame me?

  She knew?

  I looked up at Kayla. Surely she wouldn’t have said anything about this, even if she did hate me now. She was looking as surprised as I was, although she tried really hard to start glowering again when she saw me watching.

  Mum looked back at me, her smile softening to something less deadly. ‘I know you think I don’t notice anything. I notice everything, sweetheart. And Jude and I had a long conversation this morning about the hygiene problems involved in wearing a hat in the shower.’ She ruffled what remained of his hair. ‘He’s booked in for an appointment with the on-site salon this afternoon.’

  ‘A session that we will of course provide entirely gratis, complimentary and free of charge,’ Margaret jumped in to add, the mention of the Park of the Year Awards seeming to have transformed her completely. ‘And I’d like to issue your whole family with free tickets to our fabulous Stardance.’

  She fanned out a handful of shimmering golden tickets. Mum hefted the pot of mystery beef into the crook of her elbow and plucked them from between Margaret’s fingers.

  ‘There are only four of these.’

  Margaret nodded anxiously. ‘A little gesture of goodwill.’

  ‘Four. There are five of us.’

  Still looking like she’d just handed over the keys to a brand-new car, Margaret nodded again. ‘Obviously, accessibility issues when the venue is at full and total capacity for our evening events mean wheelchairs aren’t permitted due to fire-safety policies, but there will be a crèche you can—’

  ‘Abandon him in? Are you calling my little boy a fire hazard?’ Mum’s shoulders squared up like a boxer getting ready to deliver the knockout blow.

  Margaret seemed to be missing the warning signs, but Dad hadn’t. He scooped Jude out of his chair and carried him into the caravan, loudly humming the Twinkle theme tune.

  Mum wrapped her arms round the pan of beef like a war drum. ‘You’re trying to apologize for spoiling my son’s party by offering us tickets to one he can’t go to? Because he might cause an accident? Have you ever heard the word discrimination, Margaret, because I have to tell you—’

  YOU’RE A LOSER!

  A voice from inside my hoody interrupted Mum mid flow. She spun round like a whirlwind and I stared blankly back at her.

  LOOOOSER! HEY! LOSER!

  Something was vibrating and shouting in my pocket, making it seem like I was yelling insults at the park manager from somewhere in the region of my hip. My phone had different ringtones set up for everyone, so I could avoid answering when Dad’s Match of the Day theme played, and pick up when it was Kayla’s ‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’. Mum knew that.

  YOU’RE A LOSER!

  But this wasn’t my phone.

  LOOOOOSER!

  It was Jayden-Lee’s. And it was his ringtone. I couldn’t answer a stolen phone right in front of the park manager. What would I say? Oh, I just robbed a child so I could find out if this boy I like likes me too. The situation couldn’t have been any more impossible.

  ‘OI, KERSHAW! ON YOUR HEAD!’

  Until I saw Jayden-Lee standing outside his caravan. It was like I’d summoned him with the power of pure panic. Praying that he was too far away to hear the muffled sound of his own ringtone, it took me longer than it sho
uld have to even notice the football hurtling straight towards me.

  Or, not straight towards me. Jayden-Lee really wasn’t that great a shot.

  Swallowing hard, I grabbed the phone inside my pocket, groped blindly to try and make the wretched thing turn off, and yelped out, ‘Sorry, I need to pee!’

  Shoving past Kayla, I made it halfway up the ramp just as the football impacted with Mum’s pan, and the world exploded in a shower of flying beef.

  TWENTY-TWO

  There’s only so long you can stay in a toilet without looking weird, or like you have clogged-bum issues. That’s especially true when you can hear everyone outside trying to clean up after a shower of beef stew. Still, I tried to drag the time out as long as I could, picking bits of beefy shrapnel off my hoody. I’d listened to the shouting between Mum and Margaret for a while without really being able to make out any of the words, but things had gone quiet now.

  Jayden-Lee’s phone had one missed call on it, from someone called Daisy. There weren’t any texts afterwards to ask what he was doing, or why he hadn’t picked up, but I still wondered who she was.

  Was Daisy a girlfriend-sounding sort of a name?

  There was no passcode on the phone, so all Jayden-Lee’s messages were right there waiting for me to look at them. All I’d have to do would be quickly check how many kisses she ended her texts with to know if it was a love thing. There might be pictures too. It would be so easy. I just had to press one button . . .

  My finger hovered over it.

  I touched it really, really lightly, so that if the messages did open up it would be more like an accident, really.

  Nothing happened.

  I pressed a bit less gently.

  Someone hammered hard on the door. ‘Are you coming out anytime soon, or does everyone else have to clear up your mess, as usual?’

  Kayla was leaning on the doorframe when I opened it, after making loud handwashing noises and very carefully turning Jayden-Lee’s phone to silent. She wasn’t smiling. If she had decided to speak to me again, it looked like it was only to start another fight.